Ever wanted to find that other ethernet device that was pulled from you system but don’t see it anymore in Microsoft Windows Device Manager? What about a pesky AOL adapter driver or some other non existant device that you want to get rid of?
In order to show hidden devices:
- Right click My Computer and Select Properties
- Click Advanced tab
- Click Environment Variables
- Below the bottom Environment Variables window pane (System Variables), click New
- For Variable Name, enter devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
- For Variable Value enter 1
- Click OK. OK to close My Computer
- Open Device Manager, click on View, select show hidden devices from the menu. Most of the orphans will be in non-plug and play drivers and the icons will appear grayed out. You can right click the grayed out driver and click uninstall.
Enjoy
Cubert 😎
Another way to do this is from an administrative command prompt:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
devmgmt.msc
Once Device manager opens, pull down the ‘View’ Menu and select ‘Show hidden devices’.
Expand the Network adapters node and delete the offending NIC.
If you’ve ever P2V’d a server (Physical to Virtual), these steps are extremely helpful in cleaning up all the old phantom drivers from your HP and Dell servers 🙂